It didn’t take long after college football kicked off on Thursday for in-game drama to unfold.

Welcome to the 2013 college football season! I had the good fortune of spending my weekend in Death Valley for the Georgia-Clemson game, and some observations from that experience will be reviewed later. Week 1 is in the books – first game jitters have passed and lots of new scenarios got their first game tests on and off the field. Let’s have a look at what unfolded across the college football landscape over the last week.

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Thursday’s contest between South Carolina and North Carolina provided us with our first jersey oops. From SBNation:

Sure, he’s a tiny kicker, but his jersey is wide enough to get the last A across the front, yes?

Two things here. Obviously, the A is missing from the front of the jersey. However, in this game between the two Carolinas, if a viewer was colorblind would it be obvious enough to him or her that this kicker played for the southernmost team and not the one from Chapel Hill? A player indicating his team was Carolina doesn’t narrow which team it is in this game much.

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Our next jersey snafu comes to us from Southern Methodist University. From Uni-Watch (h/t to Mark Graban for the heads-up):

So Nike (presumably) dropped the ball and did not have game jerseys ready for SMU in time, therefore each team had to flip-flop home/road uniforms, and the crowd wore the same colors as the visiting team. Gotcha. Those Nike jerseys that weren’t ready to go by game time – is it because they were coming over from China on a boat? (No accusation, just a question.)

To think something like this ended up in the hands of 80,795 end customers…

Notre Dame fans at Saturday’s football game against Temple quenched their thirst for victory when their team won 28-6 with beverages served in souvenir cups hilariously mislabeled “Figthing Irish.”

Here’s to hoping the Notre Dame student body turns “Fig Thing” into a joke slogan for the season (and replaces Crazy Train in the fan consciousness).

In all seriousness, consider how many different checks and reviews this product had to go through in order to hit the customer’s hands.

First a graphic designer created the layout with the incorrect spelling.

Next, a printer produced the colored cup labels with the incorrect spelling.

After that, the cup assembler affixed these labels to the cups and did not catch the incorrect spelling before placing cups into the boxes.

After THAT, stadium concessionaires pulling the cups out of the boxes did not catch the incorrect spelling as they set out stock by the drink dispensers.

And only then did the error get streamed into the national consciousness via social media as fans with camera phones posted images of the cup defect to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and so on and so forth.

You might not be able to put a price on being mocked in the media…but the proliferation of this teeny tiny singular error that could have been prevented is quite comical.

Earlier, (Johnny) Manziel walked down the field while rubbing his thumb and forefingers together, a gesture that usually means “money.” He also gestured that way after big plays last season.

Then, after a short run, Manziel got to his feet while jawing with Rice linebacker Nick Elder and mimed signing an autograph while shaking his head.

His offseason antics and potential NCAA violation by signing autographs for money put himself and his team under NCAA investigation. And now his on-field antics drew a penalty that could have cost his team dearly.

Penalties are results from defects in performance. Penalties should be avoided, and teams that can successfully complete their tasks while minimizing penalties have a strong chance of winning their games. Penalties do occur, however, and sometimes they are because of lack of training or inability to keep up with an opponent or they are simply accidental.

However, Johnny Football’s cause for penalty was not only carelessness but also complete disregard to sportsmanlike conduct. This is the equivalent of completely ignoring work instructions and following a process a completely different way that creates lower quality.

Sure, his error came against a lower-talent team like Rice and his error did not cost his team the game. But what if his carelessness happened against a superior team like Alabama? What if his immaturity cost his team field position that eventually cost his team the game?

I just watched SportsCenter where A&M coach Kevin Sumlin was defending Manziel… if you saw Manziel appear to blow off Sumlin when he returned to the sidelines. Manziel kept walking when Sumlin was yelling at him. At best, that was disrespectful body language from Manziel (Sumlin tried hip checking him get Manziel to break stride). At worst, you have a player with zero respect for his coach/leader… in any setting, that’s a recipe for failure.

The whole situation is disturbing, but in the cutthroat world of college football I really don’t see second-year aTm coach Sumlin cutting off his nose to spite his face. The entire aTm community is coming to Johnny Football’s defense because he could help their school win the big bad SEC…and it might end up biting them in the butt when all is said and done.